| | (something I put up on Facebook, mostly to harass the guys, but I'll cross-post out of sheer laziness. don't like it? go take a flying fuck at the moon.)
I had the blithe misfortune to get myself hauled off to another show in San Francisco the other day. This is some sort of divine punishment for not having a social life outside of drinking myself into a violent stupor lately. I'm sure of it. I almost turned the invite down just to be the dick these guys know I am, but then I remembered the general penchant for watching my friends humiliate themselves onstage that I have. It's the only reason I ever attend anything Shakespeare, anymore. So I made my way down to the Hotel Utah, after a few false starts and a madcap quest for the cheapest cigarettes in that part of town.
Like all cheap shows in bars in San Francisco, it was a triple-biller, which meant one band was going to be attended entirely by that women that dreamy yet still dreary lead singer had slept with in all the years of pretending to know his way around a guitar and their unknowing boyfriends, one band was going to be a fat stack of suck piled into a compilation of hideous auditory mismanagement, and one band was going to play two good songs hidden in a sobering parade of mediocrity. By the numbers, at least. The regular bar patrons would of course, either dance or throw bottles, start singing along to the wrong songs after the second chorus, and have passed out halfway through the third set. The only sparkly-eyed believers remaining after all three shows would probably have either been on some sort of drugs, or live in an isolated Fallout-esque shelter where they'd only ever listened to Sparks.
Luckily, my friends band, The Greening, were first. These charming chaps are led by guitarist Will Loving, who can best be described as what would happen if a beard got ambitious but didn't realize a career in music wasn't the best way to ethnically cleanse the clean-shaven, Karl Messcherschmidt...er I mean Meischen, who looks somewhere between the missing link between evolutionary spasms and German genetic engineering and plays the keyboard like someone had forbidden him to masturbate, and drummer Nick Tatro, who operates under a compulsive desire to find the perfect racial pejorative for any conversation. Godspeed to him, I say.
(I've occasionally wondered where the name The Greening came from. I know it's gotta have some mysterious, mind-blistering complicated roots tracing back to scrolls and lost civilizations, but I'm not a young enough man to go traipsing around to find out. I've got a lot of gray in my stubble. I limp on occasion, from an old war wound. I haven't the youthful energy to undertake a quest of such magnitude. So for now, I'll assume it was the porno name Will operated under the time he accidentally spilled neon green paint on his pubes. I mean, sure, I could ask, but whatever, like I have the time to really care.)
After a sound-check, which might have lasted the better part of a decade in which I raised children, fought for my rights, and learned to appreciate the subtle brilliance of Soseki, the Greening finally got themselves into gear, and proceeding to rape our eardrums. But like a chorus of sexually provocative wolverines in lingerie, something about it managed to be enjoyable, in a surreal, beastial way. It leapt off the stage and fucked you. Fucked you right in the ear. It was disturbingly pleasurable, to the point where I was in front, getting my awkward white boy boogie on with a whole crowd of strangers. I don't know what came over me. Maybe it was the beers. Maybe it was the cocaine. Maybe it was the total lack of shame that I have in bars I'll never go back to. Somehow, they managed to mix up Will's weird, jumpy guitarwork with Karl's naughty manipulation of the keys and Nick's downright wife-beating kind of drum action into a whirlwind blend of good music. But, too soon after my personal favorite aka "Dirge/The Untitled Song", which is infectious to the point of swine-flu-dom, they had to put down the sexy wolverines and get off the stage.
I hate to admit it, because when my friends hear me say positive things about stuff they do, the universe starts to implode a little bit, but indeed the Greening rocked out and rocked out hard. And they managed to get everyone involved, which with the lazy crew of stoners, bar-trawlers and drinksluts being the primary audience, was mildly impressive. So yeah, I'll probably go see them again, if only to rig up the instruments to various electrical and explosive devices, so I never have to say anything nice about them again. Bastards. Sneaking talent under my radar. Fuck them. Fuck them!
Still, the best part of the night came after that, during when Steve Taylor was doing his set, that the heavily inebriated combination of Karl, Will, Danny, Flavors, Nick, and Zach and I all managed to get into some weird chorus line and totally psyche Steve out a bit doing a seven-man broadway boogie revue. Or, as Karl put it, the "Brorus Line". Yes, we stepped like high fashion trannies being paid by RuPaul, and it was glorious. Fabulous, even. And if that turns you on, feel free to message Karl with all your fantasies. He wants to hear them. He loves it.
All in all, I'd have to say, it was a good night. Unexpectedly.
Now go home!
|
| | Posted 6/16/2009 11:45 AM - 195 Views - 56 eProps - 35 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
